


Worry And Care

by buffylovesfaith



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Episode: s07e19 Empty Places, F/F, Season/Series 07, a fix it of shorts, an extended scene from when faith went after buffy after The Fight, because i really love that moment but it could have been MORE, i know this has been done a million times but i wanted to try my hand at it, it could always be more..., these two need to talk dammit, you know the one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:02:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22745983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buffylovesfaith/pseuds/buffylovesfaith
Summary: “No! I wanted totalkto you, Jesus. I’m…,” she huffs, throwing her arms down. “I’m worried about you, Buffy. I just thought maybe I’d say something and we’d all take a break and think about it and you could, like, fuck, I don’t know, go to sleep? And we could talk about it in the morning? You just look so…,” Faith bites her lip and cuts herself off, not sure where she should stop, if she went too far already.“So what?” Buffy asks in an empty voice.
Relationships: Faith Lehane/Buffy Summers
Comments: 6
Kudos: 131





	Worry And Care

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in one go last night (starting at 1am) and it's unbeta'ed so forgive me if it sucks! i'll just always have so many fuffy Emotions

The front door quietly hinges shut behind Faith as she follows Buffy into the chilly night air, crossing her arms over her chest. “Wait! B... Buffy. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

Buffy stops at the edge of the porch but doesn’t turn around. “What did you mean to have happen, then? You brought it up. Obviously you didn’t agree with how I was handling things.” But she doesn’t sound angry, just hollow. Almost like she expected her friends to stab her in the back.

Faith clears her throat awkwardly. “Well, no, but I… I didn’t want everyone to jump all over you and shit. It wasn’t even about them! I was just trying to...talk to you.”

“Talk to me? Question my leadership in front of everyone, you mean? Cause this completely unprepared group to fracture even more while I’m doing everything I can to keep us going?”

“No! I wanted to _talk_ to you, Jesus. I’m…,” she huffs, throwing her arms down. “I’m worried about you, Buffy. I just thought maybe I’d say something and we’d all take a break and think about it and you could, like, fuck, I don’t know, go to sleep? And we could talk about it in the morning? You just look so…,” Faith bites her lip and cuts herself off, not sure where she should stop, if she went too far already. 

“So what?” Buffy asks in an empty voice. 

Faith half shrugs, eyes flitting between Buffy’s back and the dark air surrounding them. “Tired. Stressed out, more than usual, I mean. Like you’re about to snap, or something. It’s freaking me out.”

Buffy’s quiet for several moments. “Maybe I am about to snap, Faith. Is that any of your business? You don’t even—you haven’t been around for the last few years. For any of the things I’ve—the things that have been happening, although you featured pretty heavily in the beginning of Bad Times for Buffy. You don’t get a say in how I deal with it, okay! Everyone is always trying to—to dictate how I _feel_ and...make me okay with everything. But maybe I’m not. Okay.”

Faith just sighs. “I know.”

Neither of them say anything as the cool air stings their fingers and cheeks. 

“I’m sorry,” Faith says gruffly, throat thick. “I wish I was.”

“What?” Buffy turns around to face Faith, the last of her tears drying on her face. 

“Here. I wish I was here. For you. With you, I mean, with you guys, everyone, just to—help out, with everything. Whatever. It’s what I should have been doing.”

Buffy scoffs. “Right. I’m sure you would have loved seeing me cry over my mom dying and over Giles leaving and over being dead and….”

“No, I would have hated it, B.”

Buffy scowls. “Ex _act_ ly. So don’t blame me if I’m not exactly heartbroken that you weren’t around to witness my most bad and humiliating moments so that you could make me feel even worse.”

“No, I—fuck!” Faith exclaims, annoyed with their constant miscommunication. “It’s not like that! I wouldn’t hate to be _around_ , I already said I should have been here. But why would I...why would I love to see you cry?”

The silence emerges again as Buffy chews on her lower lip. “You did before,” she mutters darkly. 

“No I didn’t.” She says it before she can stop herself. 

“Like hell you didn’t,” Buffy snaps. “Did you forget all the things you did to me? The things you _purposefully_ did to break me?”

“I know what I did, Buffy. Trust me, I could never forget. But I never liked it. Seeing it, I mean. What it did to you. How I hurt you.” Faith looks up from the ground and grabs Buffy’s gaze with intense, emotion filled brown eyes, and Buffy can’t look away. 

“I….” Buffy opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. “Then why did you? Do it?” She waves her hand in the air between them immediately, brushing off any possible reply. “Never mind, we don’t have to get into it now. I don’t _understand_ , but I do know why you did it...for the most part.” Faith flushes a little at that, remembering a recent conversation where she’d confessed most of the frenzied logic that had lead to her downward spiral. “Just, but it...seemed like you liked hurting me.”

Faith nods. “I know it did. I acted like I did. I seemed like a lot of things that I wasn’t.” She keeps going at Buffy’s silence. “Hell, and some things I _was_ , too. Even I couldn’t keep it straight most of the time.”

Buffy snorts. “Well, that I can believe.”

“But I didn’t like hurting you, Buffy. I felt like I had to do it, but I fucking hated myself for it. And for everything else. Maybe some day you can believe me about that, even if you can’t forgive me. I don’t expect you to.”

Buffy averts her eyes. “Why do you even want me to? Isn’t it water under the giant bridge for you at this point?”

Faith wants to say something easy, but all she can do is shake her head and choke out, “Never.” What she did to Buffy will never leave her, not ever. She clears her throat. “Plus, hey, the world’s about to end, gotta make amends, right?”

Buffy sinks down onto the porch step, heavily, like all her bones just turned to cement at the thought of doomsday looming. “Yeah. I guess now’s as good a time as any. We’ll probably all be six feet under in a few weeks, so. At least there’s this. Last ditch effort to get some things off our chest.”

Faith nods, unsure if she should join Buffy on the step or go back inside and deal with whatever chaos is sure to be brewing. Maybe she can convince Buffy to come back with her. She’s about to chance asking, but with one look it seems that Buffy’s deep in thought.

“So, you were worried about me, huh?” Buffy asks suddenly in an easier tone, smirking lightly.

Faith blinks, surprised. “Still am. But I think you’re gonna be okay.”

“I was too. Worried, I mean. About you,” Buffy says quietly. 

“Huh? You mean...’cause of the evil cops? I’m fine—”

“No…,” Buffy whispers, “back then. I was worried about you. I was so worried that you were gonna go off the deep end. That you were hiding your feelings. And I didn’t know how to handle it. I just wanted you to know...that you could talk to me, tell me the truth. That’s why I put so much pressure on you to be honest, I guess. I wanted to get through to you. And look what happened.”

Faith gives a short laugh. “And I just put pressure on _you_ ‘cause I wanted you to open up to me, with wicked great results again. Fuck. I guess we really don’t know how to talk to each other.”

Buffy snorts. “Nope.” Worry and care just come out like anger and mistrust around Faith. She doesn’t want them to but she can’t seem to help it, and it seems like Faith has the same issue. She hates it, can’t stop hoping for the understanding and connection with Faith that she’s always longed for. However impossible it seems. “Think we’ll learn to?”

“Well, if an old dog like you can learn new tricks….”

“Calling me old now?”

“You know it,” Faith smirks. “Fuck, B, you’re running an army here. You ain’t no babe in swaddle clothes or whatever.”

“I guess. I feel old, anyway.”

“Well, you look hot, so don’t worry about it.”

“I thought you said I look tired?”

“Uh….”

“Gotcha.” Buffy smiles and Faith just smiles back, glad that Buffy seems not about to burst into tears again. She keeps smiling at Buffy until it gets to be too much, then turns her gaze outward. They sit in companionable, as opposed to resentful, silence for once. It’s nice. Then Faith shakes her head, breaking the calm quiet. “Shit, I can’t believe they threw you out of your own damn house, B. That was kinda fucked up. I never thought I’d see the day the scoobies would rebel against their golden queen.”

“I didn’t see you saying anything against it.”

Faith shrugs. “Wouldn’t have been my place. Come on, these are your best friends. You guys have history. And you’re right, I haven’t been around, for, like, years. I know I don’t get much of a say here.” She pauses. “Still think it was fucked up, though.”

“I guess you’re right. I don’t _really_ blame you. You were just...voicing your opinion. You’re allowed, I suppose,” Buffy sniffs. 

“Oh, I am huh?” Faith chuckles. “When did that change? Never was before.”

Buffy rolls her eyes. “Yes you were. Or if you weren’t, you did it anyway. I sure heard a lot of what you had to say.”

Faith laughs outright at that. “And you always let me have it for what I said.” She pauses for a moment, calculating her next comment. “But you didn’t say anything to them now, and I...I think you _should_ have, B. What right do they have? Seriously, Buffy, they can’t treat you like that. You’re trying to _help_ them, for Christ’s sake. And don’t you pay the bills in this joint?” 

Buffy just sighs and rolls her shoulders back, gazing out into the night. “People treat me however they want to, it seems. I’m just expected to take it.” This Buffy is so different than the one Faith had known. It seems like her defiance, her confidence, her _fire_ has all but gone out and she’s hanging on by sheer force of will. Fuck, Faith’s not surprised the scoobies had been able tear her down so easily. It hurts. It fucking hurts to see her so sad and defeated. She wants to remind Buffy of who she _is_.

“You never took it from me. Got the wounds to prove it.”

Buffy grimaces but just says, “’Cause you were annoying.”

Faith huffs. “Oh, and Willow and Xander and all them aren’t? I’m sorry, B, but your friends are irritating as shit.”

Buffy smiles a little. “Well. Irritating in a lovable way, maybe.”

Faith brings a hand to her chest protectively. “And I’m not lovable? I’m hurt, B. I really am.”

Buffy’s lips twitch. “I didn’t say that, you big baby. I’m sure you were lovable.” She narrows her eyes. “As an _infant_.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. My mom said I was a little devil. Threw my baby chow on the floor and ripped my diapers off and dragged them on the carpet.”

Buffy hmms. “Always trying to take your clothes off.”

“ _That’s_ what you got from my story? Damn, B, you seem pretty fixated on my body if that’s the case.”

“You wish!”

“Hell yeah I do, and what are you gonna do about it?” Faith leans forward as she teases, into Buffy’s space. God, she loves this. How things between her and Buffy can go from heartbreaking and so painful one second to exciting and crackling with chemistry the next, she’s sure she’ll never know. 

Buffy smiles. “Well, _not_ kick your ass I guess, since we have bigger fish to fry.”

“Hey now, I knew the apocalypse would come through for me one of these days! But listen,” Faith whispers conspiratorially to Buffy, gesturing for her to lean in. “I know how you can get back at me.”

“Yeah, and how would that be?” Buffy whispers in return.

“Come back in the house with me. Make your besties and the newbies screech and cry all night long. No sleep for Faith. That’s a surefire way to get me to suffer.”

Buffy widens her eyes. “Jeez, I don’t know, Faith. That seems a little harsh, even for you.”

Faith grins. “I knew you were a big softie for me, B.” She holds her hand out, palm open and reaching. “But seriously, come back with me. Please. You know we sure as shit can’t do it without you.”

And Buffy takes her hand.


End file.
